Since Geo. T. Stagg is so popular nowdays, I thought I would put my timeline for the distillery here. It has several items that are of doubtfull orgin but were included so that we could know where they came from should we ever need them. Just look at the source listed before taking as fact.

George T Stagg History

1820 - The first steamboat trip from Leestown, Ky. to New Orleans. In that year 2,148 barrels of whiskey are shipped (U D Archives, Unpublished Manuscript, p.40).

1849 - Benjamin Harrison Blanton makes a fortune in the California Gold Rush. He spends the money purchasing most of the business section of Denver, Colorodo and then exchanges this property for Confederate Bonds and becomes a Major in the Confederate Army (U D Archives, Unpublished Manuscript, p.39).

1865 - Benjamin Harrison Blanton opens a small distillery on his property in Leestown, Ky. The sight later becomes part of the OFC Distillery (U D Archives, Unpublished Manuscript, p. 39).

o - The 1911 Mida's Financial Index list the address of the main office as 246 Michigan Ave, Chicago, Ill. and the distilleries as Dy. No. 2 and Dy. No. 113, both in the 7th Dist, Frankfort, Ky. with a capital value of over $1,000,000.

Mark,
It is a good time line but out date some. I have not added anything to these since 1996. I know for a fact now that Stagg was a partner in the St. Louis firm Greggory and Stagg (anybody in St. Louis want to look them up in old city directories and share the information?). Taylor did not start doing business with the firm until 1873 and Stagg was never his employee but later Taylor was Stagg's employee in a round about way. Taylor ran into financial trouble compound by 1) James E Pepper not paying money loaned to him, 2) over production of whiskey nation wide and 3) the bank failures of the late 1870's. This caused Taylor to sign a deal with Greggory and Stagg to pay his debts for the OFC distillery in return for Greggory and Stagg gaining control of the production of the distillery and eventually control of the distillery. I don't think Taylor and Stagg were ever on good terms again after Stagg took over the distillery. From the letter press books I have seen from after the deal, Stagg was a bit of a jerk in Taylor's opinion.

Mike, thanks for the (brief) update. It caused me to look at the posting you'd made before it, even though that was two & a half years ago!

Anyway, for what it may be worth today, you might want to check out this site for any info you don't already have. It's from the The American Law Register (1852-1891), Vol. 28, No. 10, New Series Volume 19 (Oct., 1880), pp. 648-651 (doi:10.2307/3304307) and is available through JSTOR.

JSTOR is a professional archive service not open to the public. They do occasionally make articles available for sale, but even that isn't authorized for this publication. You can access it online though, but you'll need to log on with your Filson credentials.

The article is four pages, of which I've attached a copy of their teaser. This action was brought in Kentucky, but presumably the parties' business locations are specified elsewhere in the document. I thought you'd find it particularly interesting since it clearly indicates that Stagg was associated with Greggory at that time, and that Taylor was a separate entity with whom they were doing business. It also implies verification of the "rumor" that Ed Taylor might not have been above selling the same barrels of whiskey to multiple buyers on occasion.

That brings up a couple questions of the sort you'd expect from me...

1. It appears from the unsigned agreement that what Greggory & Stagg transacted with Taylor was not a purchase of actual whiskey to be delivered to them but rather a loan secured by title to that whiskey in the form of barrel receipts. It then appears that Taylor, having received the money from G&S, then proceeded to sell the same barrels to Thomas Farmer. What isn't clear is whether Farmer was a bottler or distributor intending to take physical possession of the whiskey or whether he, too, was lending Taylor money on the value of those barrel receipts. It would be interesting to learn more about Farmer.

2. And so, since Farmer's purchase of the whiskey was from Taylor, not G&S, why is he bringing suit against them instead of against Taylor? The second paragraph is ambiguous as to whether the authority-giving "owner" refers to the owner of the whiskey or the owner of the warehouse. The document's language, using the term "warehouseman" to indicate Taylor, would seem to reinforce what you said about Taylor's role as "employee in a round about way". But that would then make not just George Stagg but the Greggory & Stagg firm itself the owner of the warehouse (and presumably the attached distillery) at the time this was going on. The Kentucky Court of Appeals position upholding the validity of an unsigned "agreement" and denying that the authority of the Kentucky Warehouse Act of 1869 (which would pre-date any of the actions at issue here) specifically prohibiting the sort of double-dealing described applies to this situation seems puzzling, too. Frankfort politics? And does this add any new dimensions to the relationship between Stagg and Taylor?

John,
By 1880 Gregory and Stagg were in control of the business. The law suit has them listed because they were the primary owners of the distillery and Taylor was on his way out. If Taylor sold that whiskey, it was probably at the instructions of Gregory and Stagg.